Maybe you missed that my post was pure sarcasm?

Well EA games normally have a big ass blue sign stating as such - if people cant read or comprehend, what else can Steam do? (cant believe im actually saying something pro steam!!). The thing that stumps me is, all those people whinging about Early Access games - why buy or even bother to whinge about it?. Most of the games state they are incomplete, features missing etc... and people still buy expecting a completed game...
Its never too late. Thing is, im almost sure plenty of indies especially Kickstarted games would jump onboard if GOG had a alpha/beta area - i had messages back and forth with several devs in the past who either had or in process of kickstarting a game but couldnt do anything with GOG because the game wasnt finished (sure no guarantees they could have gotten onto GOG anyway... but lost opportunity). How many Kickstarter games had EA for their beta and alphas?. quite a few.

You can't like an alpha more than an actual game, that would be absurd. Now you can crave for a game so much you might want to try it out at any cost => that's where the *don't buy it* doesn't work.
Let's be honest :
- Asking for financial support for development at an alpha stage without proper guarantees is dishonest : because it would prove you budgeted your game up to an alpha stage, which is silly but it's sometimes the reality. You want early money input ? Sell tee-shirts, don't sell promises.
- Asking for design feedback at an alpha stage just means you don't know what game you are really making.

Crowdfunding at least is more straightforward than alpha access. The devs get money, they budget something accordingly.

For me early access games is a good thing you can support developers with their game. By giving them extra cash this can lead to a better release for everyone. No one is forcing people to buy Early access titles but i am surprised at the amount of complaining people do when they do buy early access and then say but the game is not finished it is full of bugs etc.

I would love to see early access games here and as long as they are advertised as such then i have no problems with them.

this do not make any sense.... what does "like more" mean? I said "likes alpha's and beta's" not that they like them more....

And why can you not like an alpha more than the finished game? Is there some kind of universal law against it? if you as a persona like to watch how a game develop and play it in its different phases more that the actual finished product - why can they not be allowed to do so?

Not dishonest at all, as long as it is clearly stated that it is a game in alpha/beta stages. Why is it dishonest if this is made clear from the start?

It is a different costing model, that is all, and it only asks for people who are interested to participate in it. If you do not like it, then don't participate - where is the harm or dishonesty in this?

No, it means that you take in account what people want and how a game plays. A problem in development is that you can get to close to the thing and become 'blind' to some of its fault, and it helps to have more input from someone outside the project.

But, it is a good developer who managed to keep the focus on the project and know what they are making - asking for feedback is not the same as implementing the feedback. It never hurts to get more opinions - but it is the developers choice on what to do with the feedback - it would be silly to think a developer would try to implement everything that people say.... Again, this do not change anything, really.

I don't really think that's what Petrell meant. I think "Lack of distinction" in this case means that these early access games are an eyesore, and because they are all lumped up together with completed games, it's a waste of time for someone who already knows they dislike early access games to spend time carefully clicking on the game, only to see the blue early access banner and description, where they know they immediately would not buy.

It would be better if they could all be stacked into their own category, where such a customer could easily avoid it.

And I have to admit, I agree with this. I will never mistakenly buy an early access game, thinking it was a completed game, because I'm someone who will conscientiously read all descriptions, text, screenshots..etc. But I don't like wasting time reading up on rows of these early access games, when I'm not interested, because they are all clumped together, and you have to check out a game one by one.

A good solution would be to tie such an option with your account. Like, when you log in, you can go to your settings and click "Hide" to make all early access games vanish from your sight.

And this is the fairest middle ground, so people who enjoy viewing early access games can just view them as normal, while those who don't like early access, get that option to personally not see them anymore.

GOG.com is for intelligent people, and intelligent people should not waste their precious money on thin air.....

Actually you can in case you start in alpha and burn out by the time of actual retail release. Happened to me with minecraft. I started in alpha but by the 1.0 release came I was already tired of the game and pretty much only used mods and spend few months on multiplayer only spending time with vanilla occassionally.

Development did introduce one problem with it namely higher system requirements. At start I could have max view distance enabled but performance degraded as new features was added and old changed so I had to lower the view distance to medium eventually. Other 'problem' with minecraft development was that it felt slow especially if you compared to mods available. I remember reading minecraft update that fixed few bugs, added couple new features and one new creature and at the same time mod I was using added dozen new features and dozens of new creatures (some were reskins granded but usually acted or attacked dirrently, like all the creeper variants).
NEWSFLASH: You can buy <span class="bold">nothing</span> now for special early access price of 99.99$, only on GOG.com! Get yours NOW! ;-p

Sure, let's all test games for free out of sheer love for this industry! Let's drive all trained, veteran, devoted QA testers out of business in a dubious claim to "support the devs" (because publishers are not benefitting from this, are they?)!. Hey, dev, I love you so much, just have some of my money and/or time up-front in exchange for a promise of a game that I might or might not like when/if it's finished! Sure, get rich from the interests my money gives you while only giving me a digital copy of a game, which means no value loss to you at all. Because I LOVE you! C'mon, kids, grow up already.

I've said if before, but I'll repeat it: Unless you're willing to give me a cut of your benefits proportional to my original investment (thus making me a partner rather than a customer), don't ask me to finance your game. If you want me as a customer and nothing else, then finish your damn game before you come to expect any money from me.

That said, I'd make an excellent partner to a game developer. I'd never try to limit their creativity or prioritize potential returns to artistic merit. That already makes me better than the publishers these devs seem so keen on avoiding now. Well, here's an idea, devs: grow some balls, go the distance, and embrace a new business model where gamers are really part of the development process, instead of just begging them for spare change. YOU are the ones making games, YOU are the important people in this industry. Don't beg: convince.

My two cents.

Ironically, GOG sort of does. There's the "Indie" category tab right up at the top, and a "release year" filter, where you could choose, "Pre-1995", "1995-2005", "newer than 2005"..

But you are right, an "Old Classics" tab should added, where people could search for good old games or avoid them altogether.

I don't understand why "to like more" doesn't make any sense ?

If you like the alpha more than the finished game, the majority of people would consider that the alpha didn't hold its promise. And can you ask the devs to let you play on the alpha version when the game is finished ? That's unheard of.
I said "proper guarantees". You are kind of paraphrasing :)
Proposing to people to fund the game without telling them that the game will not see the light of day if there is not X people buying the alpha is dishonest. I don't believe it's common practice but Nothing prevents devs from doing so.

I may have been harsh but let's consider the example :
Alice pays for alpha access on game X because it will be an rpg with good story as thee devs intend.
Bob, Charlie and Doyle come some time later pay for alpha access for game X because it looks very nice. They don't care about story, they want nice models and they provide feedback accordingly.
At the end of the alpha, if Alice didn't get what she wanted originally it's not her fault nor the devs, in my opinion Alice should be able to ask for a refund, but the thing is the "alpha access" system doesn't work like that.

Point is : devs shouldn't ask for money for alpha access (paying for mugs, not mugged for money !), and it shouldn't be opened to anyone. There should be a limited number of people possible, access through forum ....
Yes I agree with the burn out syndrome, I know that myself. My point was more "if the finished game is objectively worse than the alpha, it's absurd".
Clarification : I don't consider impossible nor reprehensible, just absurd. And the alpha access system completely tolerate that.



Last edit : I would love to be able to state my opinion in a single sentence, but that's kind of impossible. I have nothing against Alpha access per se, but the way it is currently advertised/marketed on Steam annoys me a lot.

No, the other distributors also sell fully functioning releases, but GOG is less often (not never) doing the pre-order or season-pass thing. Still I think you can find many games released here have also been released somewhere else. Sometimes even earlier somewhere else.

That's exactly what I do and I can only recommend this. Unless one really, really wants to support the devs I would always recommend waiting for the final product and meaningful reviews before buying. If the devs want someone to do beta testing, they should pay for that sufficiently.

New games come out on Steam all the time, you guys are overexaggerating them being all/most early access.

Just this week there's Strider, Ikaruga. Banished, Nascar 14 and probably more not listed as coming soon.

Sarcasm is hard to detect on the internet when I all have is text to look at.